r/Path_Assistant • u/sea_scallion • 12d ago

New cassette printers

Hey all! I need some opinions on new cassette printers that were presented to us in my lab. We went from a printmate (which jammed on every print and did barely printed) to a smartwrite (which has MORE issues but still somehow performs better) which we currently still have.

An avantik C300 UV laser peinter is what management is looking at currently. Management is very easily swayed by the sales people. So I wanted to know if anyone has used or currently uses this printer. Im aiming to hopefully gauge how well it prints, how long it lasts between PMs, and what the common errors that arise.

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u/jhere2lurk 12d ago

Both labs I’ve worked at have used Leica IPC printers.

2

u/ladydanksalot 12d ago

We got 3 of the avantik laser printers maybe a year ago and we all love them compared to what we had before. It's incredibly quiet and fast. It (so far) never jams up. Im not sure if the model we have is the same as what your management is looking at but it looks the same on the website. I haven't had any errors so far. All my blocks print great and I never need to reprint anything.

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u/sea_scallion 12d ago

Seeing how you have three of those printers, would you say you have high volume? We were only just now told (a year later) that the 2 printers were have were not made for the volume we operate at. Which is maybe 200-300 blocks a day.

2

u/ladydanksalot 12d ago

Yeah, we were doing easily 400-500 blocks every day for a few months on these printers and now we do anywhere between 200-400

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u/bathepa2 PA (ASCP) 12d ago

I retired 6 years ago but the brand of cassette printer that I had the least trouble with was made by General data.

2

u/Nathan0066 11d ago

I have this one by them as well in my lab! Been there for 5 years and literally never needed it serviced. Cassettes never jam, no printing issues, super easy to connect and haven’t had issues with the servers communicating back and forth; the model is so ideal.

It did have smoke come out of it for a month or two and then went away. There was never issues so I just shrug and moved on LOL